With the growth of team collaboration in the cloud, information workers often waste time switching between applications or copying and pasting information into multiple systems. To work more efficiently, business teams today require a centralized hub for communication and work processes.

Microsoft Teams is now being used by 440,000 organizations, and with usage projected to accelerate, it’s clear that the popularity of this collaboration application is growing at a rapid pace.​With many Smartsheet customers using Teams, we are excited to increase the capabilities of our integration. These new capabilities will help users harness the creativity and spontaneity of conversations in Teams by pairing them with a work execution platform that helps them transform those conversations into action.​

Construction professionals need ways to eliminate process friction and unify everyone, from owner to architects to subcontractors, throughout the entire construction project life cycle. After all, delays often mean a construction project will go over budget, which is typically unacceptable.

Also, according to a recent McKinsey analysis of construction technology, cost-cutting technologies have gained significant momentum over the last five years.​The Smartsheet platform helps construction teams save money and time, and stay connected, empowering them to improve collaboration, plan better, and maintain control over repeatable processes, audit trails, and document versioning.

After fielding a few impromptu questions from session attendees, we shared some examples of how customers innovate using Smartsheet mobile. Read on to learn how customers in real estate property management, the fashion industry, and county park services have augmented their essential workflows with the Smartsheet mobile app.​

Whether you're renovating or adding to an existing location, or constructing an entirely new one, properly planning for a construction project is a tremendous undertaking. Even the most experienced program managers struggle with setting proper expectations for construction projects given the unforeseen hiccups that can occur.​There’s no way to be 100 percent prepared for the realities of a construction project. Contractors may encounter changes in site conditions and need to adjust plans, or there might be sudden shortages in important building materials.

But that shouldn’t stop owners from making their plan as watertight as possible, and using a reliable software platform, such as Smartsheet, to help them execute.

Ensure you and your contractors are hitting your targeted budget by dividing the process into these four key phases.

Have you done anything different this past week? Something you’ve never done before?

It might be something as simple as talking to a coworker you haven’t met before, or trying a new way to complete a task. Or maybe something bigger, like taking a training course on a topic you’ve been wanting to learn more about, or signing up to speak at a conference. ​

If the answer is no, you might be stuck in your comfort zone. Staying within your comfort zone also means you aren’t learning new skills, which can lead to career stagnation.​

Business today is moving faster than ever, and leadership must accelerate work processes in order to stay competitive. In fact, a survey by Forbes found that 92% of executives believe that organizational agility is critical to business success.

But how do you speed up in the right way? Here are ten ways a work execution platform can help you move faster — so you can say yes to more ideas, more customers, and more revenue.​

At a time when customers increasingly use social media and online reviews to make informed purchasing decisions, the pressure is increasing for businesses to continually raise the quality of their offerings. This emphasis on quality — combined with pressures to respond to changing demands at speed — can lead to more mistakes for companies that lack a clearly defined doctrine of quality.

So, how do effective leaders build and sustain a culture of quality — without sacrificing speed? Here are some ways business leaders can get started.​

Many powerful business leaders no longer leave their work at the office. Instead, they’ve intentionally embraced work-life integration over work-life balance, and expect their employees to follow suit.

Work-life integration is a more harmonious approach, entwining career and personal activities so that professionals can make decisions wherever they are in order to execute on business objectives. Basically, if you are productive, excited, and joyous at work, the thought is you will bring that home with you, and vice versa.

For those who embrace work-life integration, here are some tips and tools that free you up to move faster on higher impact work throughout your day.​

Fast, informed decisions are the backbone of successful companies. The ideal speed of decision making is analogous to an 800-meter run, the controlled sprint where participants need to establish their position and pace once the starter pistol fires. Elite runners train rigorously to shave milliseconds off their time.​